June 2, 2020

On-Demand Webinar at A&WMA Virtual Conference

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has created confusion with its most recent versions of the MSW landfill New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) and Emission Guidelines (EG) [40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 60, Subparts XXX and Cf], which were promulgated in August 2016. The NSPS XXX and EG Cf rules do not give clear on and off-ramps from the old NSPS Subpart WWW and EG Subpart Cc rules and have various inconsistent and overlapping requirements. EPA made matters worse by not updating the MSW landfill National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs), 40 CFR Part 63 Subpart AAAA rule at the same time. This created a situation where both the old and new rules could apply simultaneously, even though the new rules were supposed to replace the old rules (with conflicting requirements).

This and other issues forced the industry to petition EPA for relief, and the industry obtained a temporary stay and then a commitment to reconsider the rules. Concurrently, EPA informally agreed not to push forward with approving state plans for the EG under Cf, which gave the industry hope that EPA could fix the rules before most landfills became subject to the new rules via approved state plans. However, some states sued EPA over this delay, and EPA lost. As such, EPA was forced by the courts to begin approving the state plans as well as issue a federal plan for the EG (Subpart OOO), for which a draft rule was published in August 2019 and a final rule is pending.

Also, before they planned to reconsider Subparts XXX/Cf, EPA decided to update the NESHAP rule, including a risk and technology review (RTR). While doing this, EPA also tried to resolve some of the Subpart XXX/Cf issues using the NESHAPs rule as well as add some new requirements not included in the NSPS XXX and EG Cf rules. However, the draft NESHAPs rule demonstrated that EPA had only created more confusion and uncertainty.
The solid waste industry commented on the Subpart AAAA rule and is waiting for EPA to issue it. EPA says the reconsideration of XXX/Cf will not be considered until 2021 or 2022.

Currently, landfill owners and operators remain in a state of limbo. Some sites are complying with Subpart XXX and dealing with the duplicate requirements from Subpart WWW and other issues. Several states have approved Cf EG rules, so landfills in those states must begin to comply with those state rules. Several other states have proposed state plan approvals and could see approved EG rules issued soon. When EPA issues the federal plan for the EG, all of the remaining landfills in states without approved state plans will have to start to comply. This will put all NSPS/EG-applicable landfills into the same boat with the existing Subpart XXX sites with all of the problems that will bring.

The Air & Waste Management Association with SCS Engineers presents on-demand sessions include an update on the status of each of the regulations identified here, a description of the remaining areas of uncertainty and confusion, and a summary of the strategy for compliance in use by landfills during this period of limbo.

Find more event information here.

June 1, 2020

Matt Brokaw, P.E. joins the SCS Engineers new office at 3801 Lake Boone Trail, Suite 430, Raleigh, NC 27607, Tel: +1-919-662-3015

SCS Engineers, a top-tier ENR environmental consulting and construction firm, opened a larger office in Raleigh, North Carolina, in late May. The move centralizes the team closer to their clients’ sites to provide full-services. The new office accommodates new team members, including Matt Brokaw. Matt joins the SCS professionals who provide environmental services for solid waste management for the benefit of municipal and private landfills, public works, and recycling.

As a Senior Project Professional, Matt is responsible for the engineering and design of environmental solutions, with a primary focus in solid waste, stormwater management and planning, and erosion and sediment control critical to permitting compliant facilities and ultimately protecting natural resources. Extending the life of a landfill and adding airspace is often critical for the communities SCS clients serve.

The new SCS Raleigh location supports the growing demand for full-service environmental solutions supported by a mix of professionals. As specialized teams, they can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, capture landfill gases, create renewable energy from by-products, and optimize utilities and businesses using environmental practices that are economically feasible. The firm specializes in permitting for and meeting comprehensive clean air, water, and soil goals. It provides a range of services such as PFAS treatment, solid waste master planning, landfill technology, risk management, groundwater monitoring, pre-closure and landfill closures, and Brownfields remediation.

About SCS Engineers

SCS Engineers’ environmental solutions and technology are a direct result of our experience and dedication to solid waste management and other industries responsible for safeguarding the environment. For more information about SCS, please visit our website at www.scsengineers.com/, contact service@scsengineers.com, follow us on your preferred social media, or watch our 50^th Anniversary video.

May 20, 2020

SCS’s Advice from the Field Series

Landfills, especially large regional landfills, are huge enterprises with many different operations ongoing daily. A landfill’s tangible assets are equipment, buildings, machinery, construction materials in the ground, or stockpiled to support various operations. Of all these, the most significant asset is the permitted airspace. It’s undoubtedly a non-tangible asset when permitted, but gradually this asset gets consumed as it turns into revenue.

Creating landfill airspace during a design/permitting process involves the operator hiring a landfill engineer to develop the concept of the airspace, prepare an appropriate design with engineering methods, and obtain a permit for it through regulatory agencies. In a sense, a portion of your future revenue is in the hands of your landfill engineer. You depend on this engineer to create the maximum amount of airspace, generating the maximum amount of revenue for your operation over time. Your engineer is supposed to be your trusted partner, and you are investing an enormous amount of capital for the design, permit, and construction based on the work performed by the engineer.

In some instances, the operator leaves most of the technical decision making to the engineer. On other occasions, the operator is in the loop during the engineer’s design, but the operator is not heavily involved in the nuances of the disposal cell’s layout in consideration of the existing terrain. In either case, the engineer is significantly responsible for achieving the maximum amount of airspace. The multi-million dollar question is whether you could have had another 3 million or 5 million cubic yards of additional airspace in your permit. How do you check if your landfill engineer maximized airspace in the design?

Assuming proper training, most landfill engineers can design adequate landfills. Still, very few landfill engineers have the unique talent and experience that can maximize airspace within specific design parameters. You, as the operator want engineers with a proven track record of maximizing airspace in their landfill designs, and do not let relationships or political nuances affect your judgment during selection because tens of millions of dollars of additional revenue are at stake.

A trained landfill engineer may miss details that a highly qualified engineer would not. Incidentals here and there, if recognized and accounted for, can add significant airspace to the design. These details vary from site to site, and it’s up to the engineer to recognize the benefits of geometric and regulatory opportunities to add to the covered airspace. These details could be in the form of:

• Special geometries for the landfill slopes,
• The lateral extent of waste limits,
• The landfill footprint placement within the terrain,
• The extent of excavation for establishing bottom grades for disposal cells,
• The relative position of base grades with respect to the groundwater elevations,
• Combining leachate collection sumps among two or more disposal cells,
• Steeper slopes to increase airspace while staying within the bounds of regulatory requirements,
• Positioning peripheral systems in a different way to benefit from additional land to add to the landfill footprint,
• Considering future expansion down the road and planning appropriately, and
• Other nuances that an expert considers.

The operator chooses the project manager or the primary engineer for the design of a greenfield landfill or an expansion to an existing landfill, knowing that the work performed by the selected engineer could potentially add to or take away hundreds of millions of dollars from the bottom line of your enterprise. So, pick your engineer based on the engineer’s prior design track record and make sure the engineer is an expert in maximizing landfill airspace.

SCS is an expert, highly experienced landfill designer – relied on by many landfill operators as a trusted partner. Our culture is to serve our clients as if their project is our own, and we do not consider ourselves successful unless our clients are satisfied. These close relationships help us serve the majority of our clients on a long-term basis, with decades of continuous service and value.

SCS will gladly evaluate scenarios for your landfill expansions that you are planning to design and permit, and provide you with a preliminary estimate of airspace gain and revenue that an SCS design could bring, potentially increasing your primary asset by another tens of millions of dollars. Now that’s a value statement!

About the Author:  Ali Khatami, Ph.D., PE, LEP, CGC, is a Project Director and a Vice President of SCS Engineers. He is also our National Expert for Landfill Design and Construction Quality Assurance. He has nearly 40 years of research and professional experience in mechanical, structural, and civil engineering.

Learn more at Landfill Engineering

May 11, 2020

The industry is designing and building more substantive drainage features and larger collection systems from the bottom up, that maintain their integrity and increase performance over time, thus avoiding more costly problems in the future.

Waste360 spoke with three environmental engineers about what landfill operators should know about liquids’ behavior and what emerging design concepts help facilitate flow and circumvent problems such as elevated temperature landfills, seeps, and keep gas flowing.

The engineers cover adopting best practices and emerging design concepts to facilitate flow. They cover topics such as directing flow vertically to facilitate movement to the bottom of the landfill, drainage material, slope to the sump percentages, vertical stone columns, installing these systems at the bottom before cells are constructed, and increasing cell height to prevent the formation of perched zones.

Ali Khatami, one of the engineers interviewed, has developed standards for building tiered vertical gas wells that extend from the bottom all the way up. He frequently blogs about landfill design strategies that his clients are using with success. His blog is called SCS Advice from the Field.  Dr. Khatami developed the concept of leachate toe drain systems to address problems tied to seeps below the final cover geomembrane. These seeps ultimately occur in one of two scenarios, each depending on how the cover is secured.

Read Waste360’s Emerging Design Concepts to Facilitate Flow of Liquids on Landfills

Related Resources

More resources and case studies are available here Landfill Design, Build, OM&M

May 4, 2020

In this Waste Today article, Sam Cooke discusses the factors, treatment options,  analytical methods,  and identifying PFAS sources to most effectively reduce the concentrations of ammonia and PFAS in landfill leachate.

Reducing these concentrations help meet discharge permit requirements for direct discharge of treated leachate to surface waters and to meet publicly owned treatment works (POTW) discharge permit standards.

Sam points out that accomplishing ammonia and PFAS reduction with established wastewater treatment technologies works, but the right treatment depends on each site’s specific parameters. He suggests conducting bench-scale and pilot-scale testing for any feasible nitrogen removal or treatment system.  Testing the wastewater helps to identify any changes in the concentration of nitrogen compounds. Thus, necessary changes to the treatment processes, such as additional aeration or chemical additions are easier to identify and less costly to implement.

Best practices for treating ammonia in landfill leachate, Waste Today

About the Author: Mr. Cooke, PE, CEM, MBA, is a Vice President and our expert on Industrial Waste Pretreatment. He has nearly three decades of professional and project management experience in engineering with a concentration in environmental and energy engineering. Mr. Cooke works within SCS’s Liquids Management initiative to provide services to our clients nationwide.

Learn more about liquids management at landfills.

April 30, 2020

Scientists and experts agree that climate change is a present-day threat to communities across the U.S., manifesting in both predictable and unpredictable ways. As detailed in the National Climate Assessment Vol. 4 (NCA4), coastal storms are increasing in strength and frequency, forest fires are becoming much larger and more destructive, annual precipitation is changing and increasing in variability, and widespread flooding is becoming more common both in the interior of the nation and along the coasts.

These changes present complex challenges to the waste management industry that must be addressed and planned for. For example, one challenge is an increasing frequency of large-scale weather events and natural disasters, which are creating more debris that must be managed and which affects the characteristics of landfilled waste. Landfill design needs to incorporate precipitation changes and increased threats due to weather variability, flooding,  and sea-level rise. Precipitation changes affect gas generation rates and require a diligent reaction to maintain effective gas collection. Because of weather pattern changes, risks of cover material erosion and swales have increased for landfills in both wet and dry climates, which may require stronger natural caps or the use of emerging technologies for alternate cover. Additionally, landfills are affected by an increase in the variability of precipitation and rapid changes between weather extremes.

It is clear that waste management facilities must adapt to these changes in addition to scenario building for pandemics to maintain effective operations. Adaptations available include making changes to landfill design and planning, such as incorporating precipitation changes into the modeling of leachate and gas generation or increasing the distance between the bottom liner and groundwater.

Systems should be regularly evaluated and areas needing repairs should be corrected quickly and diligently. Gas generation models should be updated regularly and collection systems need to be expanded or adjusted to account for precipitation increases or decreases.

More frequent and intense storms are creating challenges for cover material management, liquids management, and maintaining slope stability. Facilities should implement innovative uses of both existing technology and new or emerging technologies.

Communities with waste management facilities should include waste management infrastructure in emergency management plans, including maintaining landfills and collections operations and using landfills as both temporary debris storage and as an option for final disposal.

Since climate change effects vary by region and locale, many facilities are developing a specific plan for adaptation and management. To reduce the inevitable costs of adaptation and maintain responsiveness to weather changes, a reactive approach is being abandoned in favor of a proactive approach.

About the Author: Jacob Shepherd is a Senior Project Professional specializing in air compliance and reporting within EPA Region III. He is experienced in environmental engineering, air compliance, renewable energy, landfill and landfill gas engineering, and environmental services throughout the mid-Atlantic region, and is a licensed P.E. in Virginia.

Resources and Recovery
Get started with these resources and recovery success studies; click to read, download, or share each:

• County Removes 573,866 Cubic Yards of Debris in 99 Days
  Manatee County, Florida solid waste division’s removal plan serves as a model for natural disaster response. Covered by Public Works Magazine.
• Is Your Solid Waste Infrastructure at Risk from Hurricanes and Flood Events? The article discusses how operators can help prevent damage to their critical solid waste facilities that need to function during and after a major storm. Covered by Waste Advantage Magazine.
• Expansion of An Active Landfill  – Vertical expansion increases the landfill volume within the existing footprint of the permitted Landfill. A landfill can run out of its storage capacity prematurely for many reasons including a response to a huge amount of debris waste from a natural disaster like a tropical storm or hurricane. Covered by ISWA.

Contact Service@scsengineers.com for assistance starting or refining your plan ahead of natural disasters and pandemics. We offer these services:

Planning for Natural Disaster Debris – help for communities to develop or revise a disaster debris management plan. Many aspects of disaster debris planning can be relevant to communities demolishing abandoned residential buildings and remediating properties.

Guidance about Planning for Natural Disaster Debris – much of the construction or demolition waste can be recovered and recycled. SCS Engineers designs and builds these facilities so we can help locate the nearest C&D debris recyclers as part of your plan.

Planning Financial Response and Recovery – the SCS Management Services™ team offers services to support financial planning and to quickly access budget and operational financial impacts. Eliminate concerns about the upcoming fiscal year expectations and anticipated medium-term impacts of pandemics and natural hazards on local government operations and revenue streams. Address issues such as:

April 3, 2020

The environmental consulting and construction firm is celebrating its 50th year in business this week.

Over the past 50 years, SCS Engineers has earned a leadership role in solid waste management and environmental services, which would not have been possible without client and industry support. There were few engineering firms specializing in environmental consulting when SCS was founded in 1970.

Today, the firm’s work supports a wide range of environmental solutions in different industries and business sectors. Fifty years ago, no one could have imagined using drones and satellites to collect information to run landfills or businesses in an environmentally safe way. However, as Jim Walsh notes, no one could have imagined a Coronavirus pandemic either; he continues:

Even today, as we are in the midst of a crisis, the likes of which none of us has ever seen in our lifetimes, our clients need us every bit as much, if not even more. In many cases, we operate and maintain critical environmental infrastructure that must continue to operate. In recent days, many of our clients are asking us if we are prepared to continue to serve them now, and as conditions worsen. We’ve said yes, fortunately, because we can and we are ready. We follow health and safety rules and guidance, we have our contingency and communications plans in place, and our employee-owners know how to circle the wagons and move forward prudently as a team.

The firm’s business model has its 70 regional and satellite offices located near client sites with mobile offices co-located on project sites. “The model has always worked well for us,” states Senior Vice President Mike McLaughlin recently. “Our professionals and technicians live nearby; our distributed network means we can drive to project sites instead of flying, for example.”

Amid the recent COVID-19 outbreak, employees are still celebrating, albeit in a different way. Postponing parties and gatherings, employees with their families watched a documentary on April 1 demonstrating the firm’s 50 years of progress and accomplishments. The film features Founder Tom Conrad narrating the firm’s history, and several of the facilities, environmental practices, and technologies in use today, with a look toward tomorrow. “We’re proud of the care and contributions by our colleagues over the years, and now,” stated Bob Gardner, senior vice president. “That sense of responsibility and ownership, along with SCS’s camaraderie, will help see us through.”

History

The environmental consulting firm started as a partnership between Bob Stearns, Tom Conrad, and Curt Schmidt on April 1, 1970, in Long Beach, California. The three engineers knew and respected each other’s strengths and capabilities:  Stearns was an expert in solid waste; Schmidt was a water and wastewater engineer; and Conrad was a jack-of-all-trades with experience in civil engineering, solid waste, water and wastewater.

The firm’s first project was to investigate a subsurface gas problem at a residential subdivision in Palos Verdes, California, and to design a solution. Eight months after SCS was founded, a new federal agency called the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created, and SCS performed three of the first research contracts awarded by the new agency. One of those projects was a nationwide study of wastewater generation and treatment by the canned and preserved fruit and vegetable industry. Another was a national study to develop a methodology to compare and select equipment for sanitary landfills. The third was a study of the impact of federal agency regulations, policies, and practices on solid waste generation and recycling; this extensive study involved 12 agencies. To conduct these analyses, Tom Conrad moved from California to open the firm’s second office in Reston, Virginia. With these three contracts, and offices on both coasts, SCS was off and running.

In the mid-1970s, SCS engineered and began operation of two of the nation’s first gas recovery projects: Industry Hills and Ascon, both in Southern California. It was a big leap to get those systems working and commercially producing the gas for beneficial uses. Soon after, the federal government passed legislation to authorize tax credits for landfill gas recovery. Thus began the landfill gas utilization industry. From their experience on these two successful recovery projects and their other landfill gas work, SCS became one of the nation’s leading environmental firms.

Next, the firm designed a solid waste management plan, followed by a hazardous waste management plan, both for the state of Maine. In Seattle, Washington, SCS’s EPA water data management project spurred the use of computers to model water characteristics and stream flows throughout the country. Out of that grew a number of wastewater and water quality-related contracts for the EPA, including calculating the percentage of wastewater in water supplies. The amount of data collected was significant.

Tom Conrad explains:

For each public water supply drawing water from a river downstream from a wastewater treatment plant, the idea was to calculate the percentage of the wastewater in the water at each point. This was “big data” before the phrase was coined.

Current SCS President Jim Walsh describes SCS’s first computer to manage the data. “It had less power than an iPhone today, but it was a powerful computer in its time, and we had a massive amount of data that we would process through it,” he stated. The beginning of data collection performed by SCS for the EPA was an extension of the firm’s water quality and wastewater practice.

SCS’s work in the late 1970s and early 1980s was an outgrowth of a number of federal projects, for example, the Dredged Materials Project for the Corp of Engineers in Vicksburg, Mississippi. SCS professionals developed experience with contaminated sites, leachate, and groundwater pollution. The firm began applying these skills and disciplines to contaminated sites in southern California. SCS conducted a number of projects for public entities and developers where construction was planned for what were the first Brownfields before that term was coined. Basically, SCS was performing Phase I site investigations and Phase II investigations, including groundwater monitoring, soil sampling, and remediation when necessary.

Senior Vice President Mike McLaughlin, who leads the practice, states:

That really was the birth of our Environmental Services practice, which was heavily involved in site characterization, Brownfields development, and redevelopment of contaminated sites, that continues to flourish to this day.

Senior Vice President Bob Gardner further comments:

From our experience in landfill research, we were able to get in on the ground floor of many of the RCRA mandates for containment systems, leachate management, landfill liners, and cover systems. We did a lot of work through the ’80s and ’90s for municipal solid waste landfill permitting and design.

By the late 80’s SCS Engineers had created new practices, under the name SCS Field Services, to perform landfill and landfill gas system construction, operations, monitoring, and maintenance. The firm was proud to offer comprehensive services but knew from their experience that each landfill and solid waste operation is unique. SCS OM&M now operates 24,000 LFG extraction wells and supports over 650 landfills across the nation. SCS Construction is a Class A – General Engineering Contractor with Hazardous Materials Certification. The firm believes that by overlapping design, construction, and operational activities, it has led to the 44 innovations listed as SCS Firsts on their website and saved their clients money.

In 1986, the firm also made a significant and strategic decision to create an employee stock ownership plan.

Tom Conrad explains:

As an ESOP company, our employees own shares in SCS Engineers and all its practices. As founders, we felt that ownership inspires better performance and that our staff deserve control in the decision-making and direction of the company. It has proven to be a successful business model for the firm.

Combining SCS’s expertise in solid waste management, landfills, and regulatory compliance, SCS Energy was created in 2001 to focus on the design and design-build of landfill gas-to-energy (LFGE) systems. SCS now has one of the longest and most successful biogas practices in the United States, primarily in LFGE and digester gas-to-energy (DGE). SCS designs, constructs, and operates more LFGE and DGE facilities than any other engineering firm in the nation.

Growing and expanding its environmental expertise to serve other industries and sectors, the firm now has several specialized practices created along the way, which continue to support businesses and governments.

SCS Engineers^® Brands 2020

SCS Field Services^® Construction | SCS Field Services^® OM&M
SCS Energy^®  | SCS Tracer Environmental^® | SCS Technology Services^®
SCS Management Services^®

Culture and Growth

Tom Conrad feels that among his greatest achievements was the hiring and mentoring of many good people, including Jim Walsh, Mike McLaughlin, and Bob Gardner, in whose capable hands the company continues to grow and thrive. Jim Walsh calls Tom, “The best mentor anyone could ever have.” He went on to say, “Tom taught me a lot, but more, he let me figure things out on my own… I’ve often said that the best four years of education I ever got was not high school or college, it was learning from Tom Conrad 1974 to 1978.”

Over the years, SCS expanded and hired many talented people. They guide the firm, maintaining the founders’ focus on adopting their clients’ environmental challenges as their own and fostering a culture of success for employees by sharing equity ownership. The firm wins multiple awards for its work, helping clients minimize waste generation and effectively manage recycling, collection, and disposal operations, safely clean up contaminated properties or water for reuse, and otherwise find sustainable solutions to environmental challenges.

SCS’s culture attracts professionals with many types of expertise, helping the firm grow organically – it is on track to reach 1,000 employees this year, and has year over year record-breaking revenues. While SCS’s core capabilities are in solid and hazardous waste management, renewable energy, remediation, and environmental compliance, in the last decade, the demand for SCS services expanded into technology, more focus on wastewater and water reuse, composting, sustainable materials management, industrial health & safety, and risk management planning. The firm maintains a deep technical bench, a wide range of industry experts, and vast environmental regulatory systems knowledge that helps clients shorten project timelines and control costs.

Community Involvement

Recognizing that industry associations benefit both employees and clients, SCS stays involved and active in hundreds of associations and local communities, serving in leadership roles, funding scholarships, and advancing research.

EREF’s President and CEO, Bryan Staley comments:

Investing in education and high-quality research was paramount to Bob Stearns, one of SCS’s founders, who chaired the Environmental Research and Educational Foundation before his retirement and established the Robert P. Stearns/SCS Engineers Master’s Scholarship. Those values continue, as does SCS Engineers’ partnership with EREF, with continued service on EREF’s Board of Directors via Jim Walsh, leadership on its Research Council through Bob Gardner (who chaired the Council in 2019) and ongoing support and participation by many SCS personnel in EREF research and educational initiatives.

David Biderman, SWANA Executive Director & CEO states, “SCS Engineers has been a leader in SWANA for decades, and we look forward to continuing to work closely with the company as we implement our vision to turn waste into a resource.”

Forward Focus

SCS is producing technologies and programs that help clients lower operating costs and reduce their environmental impact. The technologies and applications used at landfills are finding footholds in agriculture, industry, and manufacturing as well as municipalities. These advances help achieve infrastructure that runs more efficiently and supports companies transitioning to renewable energy resources while limiting added expense to consumers.

SCS clients entrust the firm with the management of more than 35 million metric tons of anthropogenic CO2e greenhouse gases every year. The firm collects and beneficially uses or destroys enough methane to offset greenhouse gas emissions from 7.4 million passenger cars annually.

These figures do not include the emission reductions achieved by waste diversion, recycling, and repurposing wastes into useful products such as Renewable Natural Gas, compost, or supporting municipal programs that send perfectly edible food to those in need.

“We attribute our success to our loyal clients who entrust us to address the complexities of environmental challenges,” stated Jim Walsh, president, and CEO. “We are proud of our employee-owners who create the technologies, practices, and systems that make a sustainable, positive impact.”

How is SCS Celebrating Its 50^th anniversary?

Earth Day is also celebrating its 50^th Anniversary this year – the first Earth Day took place just a few weeks after SCS started. Postponing parties and Earth Day events, some celebratory plans continue as the SCS employee-owners celebrate virtually for now with a documentary film, anniversary lapel buttons packaged with hand sanitizer, office plaques, and continued collaboration.

SCS Engineers remains passionate about continuing to provide superior client service and solving the environmental challenges of the 21st Century.

March 25, 2020

The coronavirus, COVID-19 outbreak has caused widespread disruptions as communities implement protective public health measures. Due to this situation, facilities may encounter difficulties that prevent them from submitting their Annual GHG reports for reporting year 2019 by the March 31, 2020 deadline.

EPA’s electronic Greenhouse Gas Reporting Tool supports facility and supplier reporting for the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. The e-GGRT system will remain open past this deadline for all first-time submissions and resubmissions. Log-in here. The same URL has new user registration and help with retrieving lost passwords.

New to e-GGRT? Get help here.

The GHGRP requires reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) data and other relevant information from large GHG emission sources, fuel and industrial gas suppliers, and CO2 injection sites in the United States. Approximately 8,000 facilities are required to report their emissions annually, and the reported data are available to the public in October of each year.

About the Program

Greenhouse Gas Services – SCS clients may direct questions to their project manager or contact us at service@scsengineers.com

March 15, 2020

The International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration (IIAR) will host its 2020 Natural Refrigeration Conference & Heavy Equipment Expo at the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel in Orlando, Florida on March 15-18, 2020.

As the largest exposition dedicated to the natural refrigeration industry, the annual IIAR Conference & Expo is a great opportunity to network with other attendees in the ammonia refrigeration industry, including design engineers, contractors, end users, academics, scientists, trainers, and regulatory agencies. The conference also offers continuing education hours and professional development sessions.

Look for the SCS Tracer Environmental Team at Booths 826-828! Mark Carlyle, Eric Girven, Bill Lape, and Jodie Rukamp will be on hand to answer your questions related to compliance with the Process Safety Management/Risk Management Program (PSM/RMP) regulations.

SCS Tracer Environmental, a specialty group of SCS Engineers, offers a wide range of PSM/RMP consulting services, such as:

• Ammonia refrigeration operator training,
• PSM/RMP implementation training,
• Mechanical Integrity Inspections,
• Three Year PSM/RMP Compliance Audits,
• Five Year PSM/RMP Revalidations,
• PSM/RMP prevention program development,
• Ammonia sensor calibration, and
• Various engineering calculations.

March 8, 2020

For International Women’s Day, SCS decided to interview one of our own, Nicole Kron, who is a Hydrogeologist in Madison, Wisconsin. Nicole joined SCS Engineers in December 2017, as a project professional in the Environmental Services practice. Nicole graduated with her Bachelors of Science in Geology from the University of Illinois and earned her Masters of Science in Hydrogeology from Illinois State University.

Early in her career, prior to working at SCS, she did a lot of fieldwork – characterizing sites, determining where there might be issues of contamination that would need to be cleaned up, drilling and installing wells, collecting groundwater and soil sampling and just getting an understanding of the geology of the site.

Nicole now focuses more on the evaluation and preparation for the fieldwork. Once the fieldwork is completed, Nicole conducts the evaluation of the lab data that comes back and a groundwater analysis if needed. Based on the data they receive, whether it’s groundwater data or soil data or any other medium, she performs evaluations for what that means for that site. She then develops reports that explain the geology and hydrogeology of the site, the extent of contamination, and what are the next steps, whether that be to close the site or needing to do more work to better define the issue. She assists in a lot of those different areas and helps with managing the reporting and analysis of the findings. 

• What attracted you to SCS Engineers?

Prior to coming to SCS Engineers, I had worked with two other firms. They were good firms but did not always have the warmest culture. I had a friend who worked in the SCS Engineers’ Madison office and mentioned that he enjoyed working for SCS and encouraged me to apply. There’s always going to be challenges and difficult times wherever you work. What I appreciate about working at SCS Engineers is that when there are those challenges, or if I’m having a tough day, there is still an environment of support at SCS and a desire for everyone to achieve their goals. SCS Engineers has the best work culture I’ve ever worked in!

• What is your favorite part of working at SCS?

Working with my team! I also love that I have the opportunity to develop my own career path and can contribute to finding solutions to issues we encounter while working on projects. I always feel respected and not just a “cog in the wheel,” but a part of the team. I appreciate that my work is valued here.

• What do you feel is your greatest achievement or contribution at work?

This is hard to answer! I’m a part of such a great team and am able to do a lot of work for some of our bigger clients in the Midwest. I’ve also taken over as the local SCS Young Professionals Leader for the Upper Midwest, where I help arrange meetings and lead discussions. I work on ways to help the YP’s feel like a connected group, supported while learning new skills, and improving work environments.

• What was your greatest challenge at SCS, and how have you overcome that?

We all have different personalities and strengths to our personalities. There are no personality types that are designed for one type of career. For example, I’m an extrovert and like to collaborate with other people. But, not everyone is an extrovert and may take on challenges differently than I do. On the DiSC chart of personalities, I am a solid “iD,” which means I like to be high-spirited and enthusiastic and am also strong-willed. It’s good to recognize everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and learning what works and doesn’t work for your team.

• In your college career, were there as many women as men at school in Illinois?

Surprisingly, there were! It was fairly balanced. Many of the women that I attended school with have gone into a variety of fields since graduating – Oil and Gas, government and state agencies, and a few went into environmental consulting. I do see an increase in women joining the environmental field, which is exciting! Most are just starting off in their careers, but I think it’s great that hopefully there will continue to be more women in STEM fields!

• Tell us about “Skype with a Scientist” and how you got involved with this program.

The non-profit organization was started by a graduate student who wanted to ensure that science would continue beyond just the classroom and that students could see scientists as well-rounded people. Scientists are paired up with a classroom over a Skype video conference, and the students can ask questions about the scientist’s work and why they chose their career path. It’s a great opportunity for students to see what scientists are like and what they do. The founder of the program wanted to make sure students would see more of a scientist than the stereotype of a person with a lab coat and goggles on, mixing chemicals all day.

I’ve participated in two sessions – a 4^th-grade class and a 10^th-grade class. The 4^th graders were from Canada, wanted to talk about volcanoes, and where they could find diamonds! The 10^th-grade class happened to be an all-female class. They were excited to learn that I was a dancer and used to perform in plays and on the speech team in college. We also talked about how it is okay to fail sometimes and to recognize failure as part of the journey in your career and in life. Failure is part of being a scientist. If your experiment fails, you can’t just give up. You have to try something new! It was great to be able to remind your students that it’s okay to fail sometimes as long as you learn how to work through it.

• What advice do you have for scientists just entering the field of Hydrogeology?

Don’t discount opportunities to learn something that would be applicable to your field. When I was finishing my Masters, I had an opportunity to take a class that would give me the foundational understanding in this field, but I elected not to take it because I did not believe I would go into environmental consulting. Now I’m working in this field! Yes, it was one class and didn’t hinder my abilities to get a job or do my job today, but you never know what may be in store for you in the future. If you have an opportunity to learn something new, try it anyway! This should go beyond STEM as well. If you have a chance to learn, do it!

• Have you had to overcome any obstacles as a woman in the field of Environmental Services?

As a woman in the environmental field, sometimes you are the minority, but that’s not a bad thing. You are there to contribute and to be a part of a team. It shouldn’t matter the color of your skin, how old you are, or what gender you associate with.

• What advice do you have for women getting into the STEM field?

Remember that your voice is just as important as everyone else’s! Be ready to listen and learn. Your voice has just as much power and meaning as any other person in the room.

• What are your favorite hobbies outside of SCS?

I love to knit, go camping, and kayaking! I also really love to go dancing! I used to take ballroom dance classes when I was younger, so I take any opportunity I have to go dance!

Interview by Lindsay Evans, SCS Engineers Human Resources